“Many beds and few doctors” Patient acceptance The background of the tight bed

While the number of people infected with the new coronavirus in Japan is orders of magnitude smaller than in Western countries, the tightness of beds to accept patients has become a problem.

One of the backgrounds is that Japan has the largest number of beds per capita among the member countries of the OECD = Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, while the number of doctors is small and there are many small private hospitals, so it accepts patients. It has been pointed out that it is difficult to increase.

According to the latest data compiled by the OECD, the number of beds per 1,000 people is 13.0 in Japan, which is the highest among the 37 member countries.

This is followed by South Korea with 12.4 beds, Germany with 8.0 beds, France with 5.9 beds, Italy with 3.1 beds, the United States with 2.9 beds, the United Kingdom with 2.5 beds, and Japan with 7.8 beds even in the acute phase. It is the most common among the member countries.

In addition, the number of hospitals is the data of 4 years ago, Japan has the largest number at 8412, and even compared to 1 million people, it is 66.4, which is the second largest after South Korea at 75.6, more than double that of the United Kingdom, the United States. It is more than three times as many as.

While the number of beds and hospitals is large, the number of doctors is 2.5 per 1000 in adult data, ranking 30th out of 37 countries, 4.3 in Germany, 3.4 in France, 3.0 in the United Kingdom and 2.6 in the United States. It is less than people.

It has been pointed out that one of the reasons why the beds are tight is that the number of medical staff such as doctors is small compared to the number of beds, and that there are many small private hospitals that are not equipped with infectious disease control equipment. ..

Yuji Inoguchi, chairman of the All Japan Hospital Association, which is built at about 2,500 private hospitals nationwide, said, "There is only one elevator in the private hospital, so it is not possible to separate the places where patients with the new corona and other patients move. It is difficult to increase acceptance suddenly because there are many patients. Even in such hospitals, we are calling on patients who have recovered and are not at risk of infection to be accepted and cooperate with the medical treatment of the new corona. "